Thomas Ryba abstract

Piercing, Wounding and Viral Transformation: A Phenomenological Sketch of Vulnerability

The semantic field (as well as the etymology) of the English word vulnerability suggests that at the core of this words meaning is the ability to be wounded or the ability to allow ones self to be wounded. This would seem to imply that vulnerability is a special species of what the Medievals would have called passio, passio entailing that an other can affect one, that one is pliant to the effects of the other. Sympathy and empathy are words which take the noun pathos as a root. The former denotes the ability to be affected by the feelings of the other or, literally, to have the feelings of the other. The latter denotes the ability to think ones way into the consciousness of the other, to understandand in a sense, share--the others motives, feelings, stratagems, etc.

In this paper, I propose to analyze the relationship between vulnerability, passio, sympathy, and empathy and the roles these intentionalities play in the understanding of the other. What I propose to do in this essay is sketch a phenomenology of vulnerability on the basis of Girardian, Sartrean, Steinian, and Hegelian analyses of subjectivity.[1]

This phenomenology will proceed on the basis of a key metaphor, namely, that vulnerability means to be pierced or penetrated by the other. I will further argue that the notion of vulnerability, thus construed, means that the binary nature of the classical distinction between subject (subjectus) and object (objectus) requires supplementation by a third term, the inject (injectus) and that it is the inject in some instances of vulnerability that allows one to describe the effect of the other in the transformation of the self. Thus it is possible to characterize an inject or penetration as viral or non-viral, depending upon whether the inject results in a significant reorganization of ones affect, ones intellect, ones will or, perhaps even, ones subjecthood. In other words, one kind of vulnerability is viral penetration when the others penetration of the self results in a wound which opens ones self to an inject instrumental in the selfs reorganization in such a way that it is brought into conformity with the other. Some varieties of viral penetration are occasioned by a condition of willful acceptance or desire. In this case, vulnerability is a complicit cooperation with the wounding and the reorganization by the injecta. Sympathy and empathy may be occasioned by this sort of vulnerability, as may be mystical experience. (If vulnerability is understood in this way, Jesus Christ stands as the great exemplar of vulnerability, not only as the physically crucified and pierced, but because his compassion for others is the mark of a supreme and active vulnerability.)

In other cases, vulnerability is a matter of overwhelming force. Non-complicit vulnerability is the result of an asymmetry of force in which the subjects unwillingness and incapacity to defend him/herself makes him/her a victim. Though all victims are vulnerable, penetrated, wounded and changed (in some sense), not all of the vulnerable, penetrated, wounded and changed are victims.

Finally, I will argue that vulnerability characterizes a wide variety of states and purposes. Specifically it has relevance to: (a) sexual action, (b) moral vigilance, (c) emotional affectivity, (d) religious experience, (e) political action, and (f) phenomenological method. Using the proposed model of vulnerability, I will sketch how it may be applied to make sense of: sexual aberrations such as sadism and masochism, contemporary political excesses such as terrorism, liminal religious experience such as mysticism, andin the processthat these applications demonstrate how the cognitive structure of vulnerability supplements the phenomenological analysis of human subjectivity.

[1] The short list of the relevant textual sites for my proposed analyses is: (1) Rene Girards Deceit, Desire and the Novel, Chapter 8: Masochism and Sadism; (2) Jean-Paul Sartres Being and Nothingness, Part Three: Being for Others; (3) Edith Steins The Problem of Empathy; and G. F. Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit especially, Part B: Self-Consciousness, Section IV: The True Nature of Self-Certainty.